The rite of spring: pictures from pagan Russia: in two parts, revised 1947 = Le sacre du printemps

This definitive edition of The Rite of Spring is Stravinsky's important final revision of the work and presents the composer's own authorized version of the score. Stravinsky's third ballet for Diaghelev's Ballets Russes, The Rite of Spring was the most revolutionary in style and impact, and remains one of the twentieth century's defining works of musical and artistic modernism. The scenario was evolved in collaboration between Stravinsky and the painter and ethnographer Nicolas Roerich, who also designed the costumes for the first production. It combines depictions of pre-Christian festivals of Spring, as observed by ancient Slavic tribes, with Stravinsky's personal vision of a girl, a chosen sacrifice, dancing herself to death before the tribal elders. The riots and violent controversy that accompanied the premiere of the work in 1913 created the greatest succs de scandale of twentieth-century music and catapulted Stravinsky to an international notoriety that lasted the rest of his life. The music's dissonance and dynamism struck its more conservative hearers as a descent into a new and terrible musical barbarism, and excited its supporters as a brilliant vision of primeval man, infusing the arts with a strong and primitive power.